


Epilogue

by thealphagate_archivist



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M, Romance, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-25
Updated: 2006-03-25
Packaged: 2019-02-02 08:57:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12723507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealphagate_archivist/pseuds/thealphagate_archivist
Summary: Jack and Daniel end one journey and start another. Future fic.





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> Note from the archivists: this story was originally archived at [The Alpha Gate](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Alpha_Gate), a Stargate SG-1 archive, which began migration to the AO3 in 2017 when its hosting software, eFiction, was no longer receiving support. To preserve the archive, we began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. We e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are this creator and it hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Alpha Gate collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/thealphagate).

1\. Decade

When you came you were like red wine and honey,  
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.  
Now you are like morning bread,  
Smooth and pleasant.  
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,  
But I am completely nourished.  
\---amy lowell

 

I know he feels so helpless now, and I know how hard this is for him; I want to tell him every minute of every hour remaining to me just how much I love and appreciate him, just how much it means to me to have him here at my side and to have his face be the first thing I see each time I open my eyes. He's tired, so tired, but he rarely allows himself to rest; I know he's afraid that if he gives in to the exhaustion ingrained in every line of his body and lets himself catch a decent interval of uninterrupted sleep, he might awaken at dawn's first light to find me already gone from him. And though I tell him over and over that it won't happen that way--and that even if I DID pass away while he slept, I would go knowing how much he loves me and so everything would still be okay--even then, he just gets that pinched, tight-lipped expression on his lined face and mutely shakes his head, letting me know in no uncertain terms that he will continue to keep this final vigil at my bedside, for however long it takes. And he knows me so well, knows that deep down I am almost embarrassingly grateful for this one, last display of the steadfast love and loyalty he's shown me for all these many years.

And even though I am too weak and tired these days to do more than take his hand in mine and rub it along my cheek or maybe press a kiss into his palm, I am happy to surrender my sadly wasted carcass to Daniel's always gentle touch, to relax into the small amount of pain I still feel with the knowledge that soon Daniel's hands will smooth it all away, Daniel's lips will press slow, loving kisses to my forehead, cheeks, and mouth as tears of love and loss and silent reverence for this whole process of my dying fall unapologetically from his eyes. Just a taste of him here and there, just a whiff of his familiar, comforting scent, is all I need now. We have loved each other unashamedly and well--so well--for all these years; and we will continue to love each other in some form or other for all of eternity, at least if I have any say in the matter.

He's murmuring softly to me now, his hands warm and sure on my sunken flesh as his fingers move with gentle skill to work out a stubborn spasm low in my side; if anyone else were to touch me so intimately in the area of my greatest pain, I don't think my body could bear it, not when it seems I'm barely hanging on these days, barely able to keep my lungs inflating, my heart beating, my mind aware...But when Daniel touches me, the pain softens and melts and flows up from my body into his hands and away, leaving me limp and lethargic with grateful relief.

"Better?" he's asking now, his gaze quietly watchful as he studies my face in the muted light of the bedside lamp; dusk has fallen, and I want to let him know that it's very close now, that everything in me knows there won't be another dusk for me, not here in this world. But he's so intent on easing my discomfort, already so full to overflowing with his tightly-leashed emotions of love and sorrow and incipient loss, that I realize I can't add to the chaotic maelstrom swirling so painfully inside his chest. It's okay, I tell myself as I raise a shaking hand to cup the left side of his face, my bony fingers rasping along the light, almost baby-fine stubble gracing his cheek. It's okay, I can make it through the night; I want to see one more sunrise, share one more dawn with him before I give in to the insurmountable weariness overtaking me and let it all go.

"Better," I whisper now, my voice the barest ghost of sound on the still air. "Love you, Daniel...so much." I want to just lie here and look at him till dusk gives way to deepest night, want to lay my head on his chest one more time and hear the belovedly familiar cadence of his heartbeat beneath my ear; but I am tired, so tired, and I know I must conserve my strength for tomorrow.

I'm sorry, love; so sorry to be leaving you, I mourn privately even as he brushes a kiss to my forehead and whispers that he loves me too, forever. God, it went by so fast, our time together; just so damned fast. And it's a rotten shame that I can't keep my eyes open now, in these last precious hours before they close for good; sorry, Daniel, so sorry, I try to say...but the meds and Daniel's soothing fingers have worked their usual powerful, narcotic magic, and with the last of my fading consciousness I hone in on the beautiful sound of my best friend's--my lover's--voice and sink down into sleep, immeasurably comforted by Daniel's presence and completely unafraid. There's still time, still time, I think fuzzily; always time for love, always the right time for Daniel and me. Me and Daniel, always...always...

* * *

2\. Place Setting

Hold me   
let me lay my head  
in that special spot  
on your chest  
beneath your chin  
where I fit so well.  
\---johari m. rashad

 

He's resting comfortably now, covered by his favorite soft blanket, with an extra pillow wedged carefully beneath his shoulders to aid in his breathing. It's barely nine am, but the doctor has already come and gone, checking his patient and slipping quietly from the room on the tail of the same tired rhetoric that he's uttered half a dozen times in the past week: Let him sleep as much as he can; it's just a matter of time now.

A matter of time, I think moodily as I smooth the edges of the blanket with restless fingers, my gaze traveling over Jack's gaunt, sleeping face down to the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket. Funny--in a strictly ironic sense--how time has become both enemy and ally over the past several days; as long as he's not in pain each moment seems a precious commodity, and some part of me longs to extend these final hours indefinitely so that I can continue holding on to Jack, so that I can savor every minute left to us...But those same hours become a grim endurance test when the pain creeps back in again, minimal enough by usual standards but harrowing to one as weak as Jack now is. When he's hurting, each minute till the meds kick in seems to last an eternity; and I want to curse and scream at the cruelly sluggish second hand on the clock as it drifts with agonizing leisure past all twelve numbers, slowly ticking off one relentlessly drawn-out minute only to drag on into the next. And as always I am caught in the middle, feeling strangely out of sync with the rest of the universe as I float on a dark and nebulous sea of love and sorrow and exhaustion, my mind and body cast adrift on the leading edge of some timeless, cresting wave without beginning or end.

Just a matter of time, I hear the words repeat nonsensically inside my head, and Jack stirs as if I'd just spoken the thought aloud, his cloudy eyes blinking open with an initial expression of profound disorientation that mutates into a dazed sort of awareness. Even before he's fully cognizant of his surroundings he's looking for me, his bleary eyes searching the space directly in front of him with something close to desperation. Unable to bear the flash of blind panic I can see in his unfocused gaze, I move as quickly as I'm able to sit on the side of the bed, my hands reaching to gently clasp his head and turn his face toward mine.

"Hey, now; it's about time you woke up," I murmur softly, dully amazed that I can sound so normal when my insides have become nothing more than a jellied mess of churning grief. I knew from the moment I opened my own eyes much earlier this morning--knew with the first, unpleasant rush of sentient awareness flaring awake in my exhausted brain--that this would be our last day together. Jack had to have known even before I did, as early as last night; and for a brief instant I want to demand that he tell me why he kept the knowledge to himself.

But I don't really need to ask; I know him so well, know that in his mind he felt he needed to keep some small piece of what remains of his world under his control. This is HIS dying, after all, even as much as it feels like I am dying, too; truth to tell, he's on the last leg of a journey whose final steps only he can make, though I would go with him all the way if only I could. He knows that, knows how difficult this is for me and how very, very tired I am and have been for days; he knows that I already ache with loneliness for him even though he hasn't left me yet. So he would have wanted to spare me the approximate countdown that must even now be ticking off the seconds deep within his body. He merely wanted me to rest through the night, to sleep without the added burden of knowing how short his time here really is. I see the realization in his sunken but suddenly alert eyes now as he summons a faint grin for me, his hands moving shakily to settle over mine as I lightly caress the illness-carved hollows of his cheeks; he knows that I know about his little bit of subterfuge, and a wry, half-apologetic glint of humor surfaces in his eyes as I lean in to press a kiss to his forehead.

"Did you get some rest?" he questions me, trying to turn the direction of this silent exchange between us into an avenue he can control. "You look a little better this morning, anyway."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I return drily, still awed by the fact that I can do this, that I can sit here smiling down at this man I've loved for decades without crumbling into a million pieces from the force of my sorrow. I thought I'd be ready when the time came; I told myself over and over these past few days that I'd be okay, that I could stay strong for him, for the both of us. But now, when the time is drawing so near, I can't even imagine getting through this, can't begin to conceive of the necessity of saying good-bye to him.

Oh, God, help me, I find myself praying now to some nebulous, faceless entity whose existence I'm not even sure of half the time. God, help me do this for Jack, help me send him off to the next thing--to YOU, I suppose--with nothing but love and serenity shining from my eyes, with humble gratitude for all Jack has given me transmitting itself through my every touch to his gracefully fading body. We made such a wonderful life together, and that is what we both need to celebrate today--Jack's wonderful life, and the incredible impact his soul has had on mine.

So even though the knowledge of time's inexorable rush to our final moments together looms large over our heads, by silently tacit agreement we both decide not to speak of it; Jack's brown eyes have never looked so beautiful, so richly warm and loving as they smile up into mine now, and I blink away tears of overwhelming emotion as he pulls one of my hands to his lips and presses a light, dry kiss to my palm. I'm relieved to see that he seems to be pain free this morning and find myself abjectly grateful that he's so lucid, that the endearingly snarky, sardonic man I've looked at across the breakfast table for almost forty years is fully present with me this morning. I won't think right now about the article I once read which stated that dying patients quite often summon one last burst of energy and animation before succumbing; all I want to do is to accept with good grace this gift of a fully cognizant, pain free Jack, whose clear eyes are studying me now with such wry perceptiveness.

"Hungry?" I ask him now, determined to make this morning as normal as possible for the both of us, and he wrinkles his nose with an expression of mild distaste before a decidedly mischievous twinkle appears in his eyes.

"Yeah, but not for food or drink," he murmurs and leers suggestively at me. I can't help the disbelieving chuckle that erupts from my throat at his expression, and he feigns a hurt look as I shake my head wryly and begin fussing with his blanket, trying to tuck him in more securely so he doesn't get a chill.

"Climb up here with me," he says softly now, his gaze earnest and more than a little pleading on mine. "Lie with me awhile, let me hold you. That is, if you don't already have some other impossibly hot stud waiting in the wings whose bed needs warming this morning."

His eyes crinkle teasingly at me with that last remark, but his mouth simultaneously shapes itself into a pensive line that speaks of his need for me and for physical contact between us. There is something so poignantly, achingly vulnerable in the cant of his head toward mine, in the mutely beseeching curl of his fingers around my wrists, that I feel a hot rush of tears flood my eyes and have to briefly turn my face away, coughing hoarsely once or twice to hold back the choked sob lodged halfway up my throat.

"My feet are cold; I'll freeze you," I offer inanely, the warning sounding lame even to my own ears, and Jack barks a short huff of laughter as I rise from the bed and move slowly around it to the other side, where I lay last night in the grip of uneasy dreams.

"So are mine, probably," he retorts, then shoves the blanket aside and gestures for me to snuggle in next to him. "Maybe together we can generate enough heat to at least warm our toes. Team work, that 's the ticket," he adds with a satisfied grunt as I climb carefully onto the mattress and arrange my body alongside his, moving slowly and rather gingerly so as not to jar him unduly.

"I'm not made of glass, dammit," he grumps, seeming mildly amused by my elaborately cautious maneuvering; and with a surprising surge of strength he wraps an arm around me and pulls me right up against him, his brown eyes gleaming into mine as he fumbles to pull the blanket back up around us.

"Here, let me get that," I murmur, stretching an arm across his torso to snare the edge of the blanket. Fussily I tuck it in around us, my left leg absently sliding halfway over Jack's as I arrange the blanket's soft fleece material to my satisfaction; when I realize what I've done and try to withdraw my leg, fearful that my weight will hurt him, Jack growls an imprecation at me and reaches to put my leg right back where it was.

"Rest your head here, on my chest," he murmurs, patting a spot just over his heart, the exact same spot that has been perhaps my favorite place on his whole body for all these many years; this is the place where his heart beats so strong and true, assuring me of his strength and courage, of his life force and his love for me...night after blissful night I've fallen peacefully asleep, lulled by the comforting sound of his heartbeat beneath my cheek, vibrating soothingly in my ear. But now I don't know if I can bear it, to lie here with the knowledge that this time tomorrow that amazing heart will be beating no longer, that after today I will never again be able to rest against my beloved like this and breathe him in, revelling in his solid warmth and his presence here with me.

"Come on, babe; it's all right. It's going to be okay," Jack is murmuring now, his gaze on me filled with such simple, unconditional love and understanding that I don't even try to hide the renewed flow of tears that trickle from my eyes and blur the sight of his thin, austerely beautiful face before me.

"Jack...oh, God, Jack," I moan, helpless to stop the sudden, savage trembling that has taken hold of every part of my body. "Jack, I..." I begin but can't go on; indeed, I don't even know what I could possibly say, anyway, to make any of this any better, any easier.

"Shh...come here, right here, Daniel," Jack whispers into my ear, his breath amazingly warm and vibrant as he nestles me protectively against him, one gentle but compelling hand directing my head onto his pajama-clad chest. "I love you so much," he continues fiercely as I shake uncontrollably within his light grasp, my left foot jerking convulsively before winding around his left ankle in an instinctive bid to anchor myself to him and hold him here with me forever, to never let him go.

"Love...love you, too, dammit," I manage to grit out between teeth that want to alternately clench and chatter; dully I wonder if I'm going into shock, and I almost smile at the darkly ironic image of suffering a massive stroke and beating Jack to the pearly gates or wherever the hell souls go when they flee their dying bodies.

"Sorry...don't know why...why I'm having this reaction, I know I'm being a pain..." I hear myself babble thickly through my tears, but Jack merely sighs patiently and begins to rub a hand up and down my back, the slow but mercifully steady rhythm of his heart thumping a calming message into my ear as I finally allow my head to sag limply against his chest.

"Today is going to be a good day, a damned beautiful day, Daniel," he tells me, his voice only a little bit weak as he presses his nose into the thinning wisps of my hair and takes an appreciative sniff. "We'll lie here awhile, just soaking in the ambience, so to speak; then we'll have a little lunch, maybe catch a bit of ESPN, hell, even sneak a beer; I really want to chug one last cold one, you know? And then, later, I want you to call Sam and Pete; I want to say good-bye...okay?"

I'm unable to answer, my throat too thick and tight to force even a single syllable up into my mouth; but I make myself nod against him, my lips pressing themselves with silent fervor to the smooth skin directly over his heart. Dimly I'm aware that hot tears are falling from my eyes again onto his sunken chest, but he doesn't comment on the salty dampness soaking into his pajama top. He merely tucks me even closer beneath the curve of his arm, and as my helpless shudders begin to slow and settle into numb quiescence, Jack begins to reminisce about our long-ago days with the SGC and SG-1, his words painting such vivid imagery of our many past exploits with Teal'c and Sam that I begin to smile despite myself, caught up right along with him in wonderful memories whose rougher edges have worn smooth and soft with time and the perspective of hind sight.

"Do you think Teal'c will come to meet you...you know, on the other side?" I hear myself say suddenly right in the middle of one of Jack's stories, and for a breathless moment I am frozen, stunned into dismayed immobility by my own unexpected outburst. God, why did I say that? I moan silently to myself as bittersweet images of Teal'c--dead for well over a decade now--battle with my roiling feelings of grief and loss. But maybe this is just another coping mechanism, I tell myself, just another way of trying to get a handle on my emotions; if I can just envisage Teal'c waiting patiently on the other side of this life to welcome Jack to the next plane--to take him under his wing and shelter him in those first, noncorporeal moments of disorientation--then maybe I can get through this. And Charlie, oh God, if Jack could just be with his son again...

"Maybe so; I mean, it would be so damned good to see T again," Jack is murmuring, a fond tone in his voice. "Even now it's still hard to believe he's been gone so long. Hey, if I DO run into him...over there...I'll be sure to send him your regards. How's that?"

"I'd like that." I manage to get the words out with only a bit of a wobble in my voice, and I briefly lift my head from Jack's chest to give him a wry, shaky half-smile. "Tell him I've never been able to find anyone else who could beat me at Jackals and Hounds; he was always my best opponent."

"He did enjoy the hell out of playing that game with you," Jack agrees, a rueful grin lighting up his pallid face. "I think I was downright jealous sometimes when the two of you got started on one of your marathon sessions."

"Oh? I never noticed," I say innocently, and Jack gives a low growl and tilts my face upward with a hand under my chin, lining our mouths up for a slow, almost unbearably tender kiss.

"You always were a cock tease," he mutters, and for the briefest instant I can almost imagine that none of this is real, that I am merely having a strange, sad dream and will snap awake to find that it's thirty years ago and Jack and I are both young and strong and just starting to make a bold new life together. If I wish for it hard enough, maybe I can have it all back; maybe I'll wake up tomorrow to find that we're back at Cheyenne Mountain, still members of SG-1 and still under Hammond's excellent command. Sam will still be young and lithe and intensely absorbed in her career, with Pete and motherhood still far in her future; and Teal'c will still be alive and well and as seemingly invincible as ever...

"Daniel...it is what it is," Jack's voice murmurs gently now, his disarmingly intuitive gaze ensnaring mine and prohibiting me from hiding any longer inside my useless escapist fantasy. "And I'm ready; today is a good day for this, the best day. Can you understand that?"

Once again his hands are stroking my back, half-embracing and half-supporting me in my helpless grief as I merely nod woodenly, my facial muscles contorting into a rictus of desperate sorrow totally beyond voluntary control. I know I need to be the one supporting him now, the one with strength and control enough to take us both to the end; but as usual Jack is the one in charge, Jack is being this gruff scion of gentle practicality while I fall messily apart in his arms at ten o'clock in the morning of his last day with me. And I want to tell him how sorry I am for that, for placing such a burden on him in his final hours; but once again he reads my mind with uncanny accuracy and recaptures my face between his hands, his eyes burning into mine with unwavering intensity.

"Don't you see what a gift you've given me today, Daniel, letting me be in charge one last time, allowing me to do something for YOU before I...go? Let me be strong this morning, before I can't be strong anymore; let me hold you, babe, shelter you, love you...Will you let me do that, Daniel?"

His breath is faint but wonderful against my face, each exhalation and inhalation so unutterably precious to me; and all I can do is nod and then close my eyes as he pulls my head down closer to press butterfly-light kisses on my sealed eyelids, his lips tasting the salt of my tears as if partaking of some unspeakably holy ritual.

"It's going to be all right," he repeats his mantra from before, and his voice is so calm, so practical and steady and accepting, that I can only surrender to it, sinking down and down into the hypnotic cadence of each quiet word flowing from his lips; as my exhausted body burrows into his side, my arms going awkwardly around his middle, the two of us seem to merge into one seamless being, our individual limbs melding and morphing until I can no longer differentiate Jack's body from my own or separate his breathing from my own sorrowful but becalmed respirations.

"That's it; let it go, just let it all go...such a beautiful day, Daniel, such a blessing to spend it together..." And as Jack's words wash over me, through me, I cling tightly to him, desiring nothing more than to send my soul right into his body so that when he takes his last breath my spirit will be released alongside his, the both of us soaring out beyond this world, this life, together, always together...

"Together," I whisper now, fingers curling into the bony cage of his sunken ribs as I press my lips to that favorite place above his heart. And as he sighs and murmurs my name, I swallow down the grief rising anew within me as the steady rhythm thrumming beneath my mouth suddenly skips and falters, sending an agitated quiver up through the thin layers of muscle and flesh shielding the center of his life force. And so it begins, I think with immeasurable sorrow as the beat hesitantly picks up again, resuming a regular but markedly weaker pace.

"Jack," I begin, my voice deplorably shaky; but Jack merely sighs once more and gently but firmly resettles my head higher up on his chest, tucking my face into the side of his neck where his pulse beats like the restless wings of a very small bird struggling to break free of some painful snare. Release me, release me, something seems to cry from deep within his veins; and all I can do is press my mouth to the faintly throbbing ridge of his carotid, mute with the unassuageable longing to sink beneath his skin and absorb the fading flavor of his soul before it flies away beyond my reach.

"I love you, Jack," I murmur, repeating the words over and over as I feel him begin those first, deliberate steps toward truly letting go; I love you love you always, yes love you always--and his pulse flutters and jumps and races as the soul trapped within the dying body absorbs all this emotion I'm incapable of holding in, absorbs and savors and honors each declaration of love as his arms, weaker now but still so protective, still so nurturing, hold me close and he tells me right back that he loves me loves me always, always he will love me...

And as he cradles me close against him, my gaze drifts helplessly to the small digital clock on the bedside table, the glowing numbers blurring before my eyes as the precious minutes tick away.

* * *

3\. Return

Return often and take me,  
beloved sensation, return and take me  
when the memory of the body awakens,  
and old desire again runs through the blood;  
when the lips and the skin remember,  
and the hands feel as if they touch again.

Return often and take me at night,  
when the lips and the skin remember...  
\---c.p. cavafy  
(translated by rae dalven)

 

They think that I can't hear them, these gentle hospice ladies with their silent shoes and so-quiet voices; they think I'm too far gone now to be aware of anything going on around me. But I'm still here, at least intermittently; from time to time part of me surfaces from the light coma I've been in for quite awhile now and I become conscious that my spirit, as hard as it might labor to be free, still remains trapped within the shrunken, dessicated confines of this body.

Where are you, Jack? I hear myself thinking fretfully, this small portion of my mind that's still cognizant busily digging up peevish epithets that I'm certain would not sit well with the gentle sisters of mercy presently attending me. Dammit, Jack, I'm ready to go; I've served my allotted time and then some, and you've probably gotten yourself into who knows what sorts of mischief out there without me to ground you. So what's the hold-up; why am I still here, figuratively twiddling my wizened, useless thumbs and waiting for my other half to get the damned lead out and come rescue me from this living death.

All I have left now are the dreams--lovely, hazy dreams of being young and firm and virile again, dreams in which an equally young, vital Jack O'Neill returns to me and takes me over and over throughout the long, silent reaches of the night...the dreams are surreal but powerful, so powerful that almost I can remember the feel of his hard, hungry flesh against my own, almost I can recall the exact taste of his mouth, his tongue, of his glorious, sweat-slicked skin...The dreams are all that remain to me as I wait impatiently to die; and as the muted voices of my caretakers fade into an indiscriminate blur of sound, I remember vaguely that one of them said something--or did I just imagine it?--about today being my birthday...my one hundredth birthday, and wasn't it a shame that with all the lovely advances in treating geriatric patients, I just didn't seem to have the desire to take advantage of the treatments which would have kept me active and ambulatory for another ten years or more. My God, why would I want to be here for ten MORE years, when Jack is out there waiting for me, no doubt growing pissy and impatient with my stubborn lingering-on routine.

"Return to me," I imagine I hear him ordering me now, from somewhere very near but still so impossibly beyond my reach. "It's time, Daniel, time for us to be together again, right where we belong. Are you ready, babe; are you ready to come home?"

"I'm ready," I murmur fitfully, one jaundiced eye rolling sluggishly to the side as I drag myself up from drugged inertia just long enough to try to make sense of my surrounding, to try to locate the source of Jack's voice calling to me. If I could just SEE him, why is he making this so damned difficult?!...

"Where are you?" I mutter irately, pleadingly, and suddenly a ghostly, ethereally beautiful figure dressed in white looms before me, amorphous hands stretching in my direction.

"Are you here to take me to Jack?" I murmur, my voice so weak and rusty it's practically unrecognizable. "Are you an angel...or some sort of ascended being? Please, won't you tell Jack I'm ready now, that I want to go with him? Please, if you'll just give him the message..."

"Shh...there, there, Dr. Jackson, it's all right. Everything is under control, you're safe here in your own private cubicle in the Ayerston Hospice Center; and since today is your birthday, we've put a special decorative sticker on your doorway to let everyone share in the wonderful celebration of your centennial."

"Screw that," I hear myself rasp irritably. "Don't...don't want a dec--decorative sticker. Want Jack; I WANT the HELL out of here. Dammit, Jack, is this your idea of a proper birthday surprise?" I whine, and the last thing I see before my damned, traitorous body succumbs to helpless slumber is the hospice worker's startled and vaguely disapproving face floating above me.

* * *

For awhile there is nothing, just blank, disorienting darkness; and then, some unknown time later, something pulls at me, some...FORCE...that's strong and warm and elusively, tantalizingly familiar. I can almost smell it, can practically taste the unique flavor of this presence I feel as I hover here in this no-place; and when I somehow suddenly manage to SEE without benefit of my physical eyes, the 'sight' that greets me fills me with an equal measure of joy and pissy indignation.

"Well, you sure took your sweet time, Jack," I mutter as the familiar outline of my one true love approaches me here in this place of limbo, his figure surrounded by a softly glowing light that in no way distorts or alters the blessedly familiar signature of his unique soul.

"I took MY sweet time; what, were you hanging around just for that dumb decorative sticker saying you made it to one hundred?" Jack snarks in reply; and I realize that he's with me, truly here with me; his brown eyes are shining down into mine now with all the humor and love and simple, uncomplicated tenderness I've dreamed of for the past thirty years without him, and suddenly all those long, empty decades seem to fall away, taking with them the overwhelming sense of unrelenting loneliness that has plagued me without surcease for so long.

"You look good, Jack; all glowy and everything," I hear myself murmur inanely, and Jack barks out a surprised shout of laughter as he steps right up to me, up so close that I can see the delicate, sooty outline of his eyelashes and the white, white gleam of his teeth. My God, he's YOUNG again and so very HOT, I think dazedly, something deep within my soul straining hungrily toward him, desperate to touch him, to discover if he's solid here in this place or just another wistful, deathbed hallucination.

"You're beginning to look much better, yourself," Jack replies with a wry grin; and suddenly the darkness surrounding us begins to lighten from blackness toward a faint, lovely, roseate hue. "So...are you just gonna stand there gaping at me for all eternity, or are you going to let me kiss you senseless and take you home?" Jack continues, the teasing note in his voice shading over into something inexpressibly soft and tender and joyous as he sees the light of hesitant comprehension finally flare up in my eyes. (Oh, God, I still have eyes, I have a body, I can SEE my body and it's young, so young and strong again, I can FEEL my strength...And it's real, Jack is actually HERE, I am HERE, too, and we're together...finally TOGETHER.)

"Jack...oh, Jack," I sob, my mouth stretching wide in a grin of such huge relief and joy, such unprecedented emotion that I don't know how to contain it and don't even want to try. "JACK!" And then I'm in his arms, his amazingly, gratifyingly strong and solid arms, and he's crushing me to him, pressing wild, hungry kisses to my face and neck and murmuring my name over and over, his eyes alight with a fierce exultation.

"Welcome home, Daniel," he whispers right before he takes my mouth in a devastating kiss. "Didn't I tell you it would be all right?" And as I happily reaquaint myself with the glorious taste of him, with the astoundingly solid and normal feel of him in my arms and with the incomparable merging of my soul and my mind with his, I want to shout aloud with the joy and excitement of knowing that this is truly just the beginning. I am blazing, alive, incandescent; WE are one again and have made it back to the place we were always meant to be.

"Geez, will ya try to tone it down; the gang's gonna think I've already had my wicked way with you before I've even brought you back for the big surprise party," Jack grins when we finally pull apart, both of us flushed and aroused and pleased as punch with the knowledge of it. "I wasn't supposed to spill the beans, but I think it's only fair to warn you--they're all there, waiting to holler SURPRISE! and WELCOME HOME, DANNY! and other annoyingly happy exclamations. Your parents, Shaure, Teal'c, Sam, Doc Fraiser, Hammond...we'll be lucky if we even get a century to ourselves," Jack is muttering as he takes my arm and begins purposefully tugging me along.

"Mom? Dad? Sh--Shaure?" I hear myself muttering dazedly; and Jack turns to me with an expression of such beatific love and pride that I am struck dumb by it.

"They can't wait to see you, babe," he murmurs huskily, his brown eyes so bright, brighter than I could ever imagine. "So many people love you, Daniel, and they were all nice enough to let ME be the one to guide you over, to be the first to welcome you home. And I guess the least I can do is share you with them for the next little while. But after that...after that you're all mine," he promises, and the light in his eyes now is decidedly wanton.

"You mean we can DO that here?" I whisper, and he pulls me to him and kisses me so passionately and thoroughly that I'm left with absolutely no doubt that yes, indeed, we can do THAT here.

"Sweet," I murmur dazedly as we reluctantly break apart again; and with Jack's very solid form leading the way, we head away from the fading darkness behind us and into the light of the rest of our eternity together.

~The End~


End file.
